Borderlines

The map starts unlabelled. For each era, select a region and assign the realm that controlled it, then switch to the next age and do it again. Part of the challenge is reading how the borders redraw between eras. Complete every era for the full score.

• Click a region on the map to select it
• Choose its controlling realm from the answer palette
• Switch eras to label the same map at different points in time
• Use Check to score the era and Clear Era to start it over

• Desktop: click a region, click a label, use the era tabs and the Hint/Check buttons
• Phone & tablet: tap regions, labels and era tabs

• Anchor on the realms you know first, then deduce neighbours from the borders around them
• Compare eras, a region that changed hands is exactly the kind of border the game rewards spotting
• Hints help on tough regions; Easy, Medium and Hard change how many realms share the map

Borderlines is a map-labelling puzzle about historical geography and how empires' borders changed over time.

• Skills: historical geography, empires and borders, map reading, change over time
• Best for: roughly grades 6–11 (ages 11–16)
• For parents & teachers: how borders changed across history.

Assigning realms to regions era by era on an unlabelled map is reading a historical atlas, and watching the boundaries move is the original design.

You replay the same map across ages.

Successive eras show what a single map cannot: that frontiers are events rather than features. The same river or mountain range is a border in some centuries and the middle of a state in others, which is the difference between political and physical geography.

Borderlines is an original map-labelling puzzle about historical geography and how empires' borders changed over time. Play free in your browser with daily and practice maps.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.